Max Karoubi is a Professor Emmeritus at the University of Paris 7, working in K-theory and algebraic topology. In this interview, Max shares warm memories about Grothendieck and the Bourbaki group, discusses math studies in Northern Africa and highly recommends doing research in collaborations.
Max' webpage: https://webusers.imj-prg.fr/~max.karoubi/
Photo: from Max' webpage
0:00 teaser
0:43 getting into math in Northern Africa
5:33 getting a family helped to do math
9:12 PhD under Cartan and Grothendieck
13:05 Grothendieck: naive genius
16:53 Karoubi as a name for math terminology
19:18 new foundations of hermitian K-theory
22:20 why write math in french
26:33 founding European Congress of Mathematics
29:30 collaborators are the best
34:35 the importance of teaching
38:53 why french people are arrogant
42:26 RIP good jobmarket times
44:33 how we can help math in developing countries
46:44 traveling to USSR in 1961
48:58 please don’t boycott ICM!
51:35 you cannot do math alone
55:58 wish for young mathematicians